Florida Woman Busted Digging Up $20,000 in Drug Money From Her Backyard

When federal agents with the DEA showed up at the Florida home of a woman and asked what she was doing digging a hole in her backyard, she told them she was “digging a hole to bury an urn, in accordance with her religious beliefs.”

What 39-year-old Doraisy Martinez didn’t know was that those agents were there for her.

They took over the digging and found $20,000 in cash that had been hidden there.

It turns out the agents weren’t going on a random hunch when they showed up at just the right time back on March 18th.

41-year-old Osvaldo Rizo Santana, Martinez’s boyfriend, was arrested at that very same home in Boynton Beach for allegedly selling over four pounds of cocaine.

While he was in jail, jailhouse phone calls between him and her had been recorded. It was in one of those calls, according to court records, that he gave “his girlfriend instructions for finding something buried in the backyard of their residence. A second search warrant executed at [his] residence following his arrest turned up $20,000 in U.S. cash buried in the backyard.”

Ms. Martinez, who had no priors, was arrested.

On Wednesday, she was released on $50,000 bond and warned not to talk about the case with any of the witnesses or people who may have been involved…or in phone calls with Mr. Santana, who is now in federal prison.

He’d pleaded guilty to possession of cocaine with intent to distribute, and was sentenced to just over three years in prison, followed by four years of supervised release. His scheduled release is November of 2018.

Ms. Martinez was charged with two federal charges of attempted removal of property to prevent seizure, and making a false statement.

If she’s convicted, she faces a maximum of five years and $250,000 on each count.